A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World [Hardcover]

Gregg Rosenberg (Author)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 344 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press (Nov 3 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195168143
ISBN-13: 978-0195168143
Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.6 x 2.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 621 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,480,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

"A Place for Consciousness is strikingly original, clearly written, tightly argued and does an excellent job of presenting a very distinctive, fascinating and promising account of causation and consciousness...Rosenberg's work is very refreshing; it takes a genuinely new approach without sacrificing the kind of 'rigour' and clear argumentation which is the backbone of analytic philosophy."--William E. Seager, University of Toronto at Scarborough

"A Place for Consciousness adopts a unified approach to the metaphysics of consciousness and causation, on which consciousness is intimately linked to the basis of causation in the physical world. Rosenberg develops his fascinating view with ingenuity and precision. Philosophers of mind and metaphysicians will learn much from a close study of this remarkable book."--Torin Alter, The University of Alabama

"Gregg Rosenberg systematically explores the idea that consciousness is tied to an inner aspect of processes that science normally studies only from the outside. He develops this idea in unprecedented depth and detail, laying out an original theory of the roots of consciousness in the intrinsic nature of causation. The book is full of fresh ideas in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. The result is a significant work of philosophy that makes compelling reading for anyone interested in the place of consciousness in nature."--David J. Chalmers, University of Arizona

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What place does consciousness have in the natural world? If we reject materialism, could there be a credible alternative? In one classic example, philosophers ask whether we can ever know what is it is like for bats to sense the world using sonar. It seems obvious to many that any amount of information about a bat's physical structure and information processing leaves us guessing about the central questions concerning the character of its experience. A Place for Consciousness begins with reflections on the existence of this gap. Is it just a psychological shortcoming in our merely human understanding of the physical world? Is it a trivial consequence of the simple fact that we just cannot be bats? Or does it mean there really are facts about consciousness over and above the physical facts? If so, what does consciousness do? Why does it exist? Rosenberg sorts out these problems, especially those centering on the causal role of consciousness. He introduces a new paradigm called Liberal Naturalism for thinking about what causation is, about the natural world, and about how to create a detailed model to go along with the new paradigm. Arguing that experience is part of the categorical foundations of causality, he shows that within this new paradigm there is a place for something essentially like consciousness in all its traditional mysterious respects. A striking feature of Liberal Naturalism is that its central tenets are motivated independently of the mind-body problem, by analyzing causation itself. Because of this approach, when consciousness shows up in the picture it is not introduced in an ad hoc way, and its most puzzling features can be explained from first principles. Ultimately, Rosenberg's final solution gives consciousness a causally important role without supposing either that it is physical or that it interacts with the physical.

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First Sentence
Consciousness is a refugee. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Amazon.com: 5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THE book to read about consciousness and/or causation, April 28 2005

By John R. Gregg - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World (Hardcover)

Rosenberg spends the first part of his book arguing against the various flavors of reductive materialism and functionalism, and for a more or less Whiteheadian form of panpsychism. He goes on to make some claims about the kinds of properties we would expect of proto-consciousness at the lowest levels. He points out that panpsychism commonly has a distinctly ad hoc air about it, in that we have a high level phenomenon, consciousness, and we explain it by jamming in a new cog in the machine at the lowest possible levels of physics. He counters this by claiming that there are independent reasons for positing a layer underneath physics, and we can make certain claims about what this layer would have to be like completely without reference to the question of consciousness (or proto-consciousness), and in the end the properties we demand of this sub-physics layer match up nicely with the properties we require of proto-consciousness.

His layer underneath physics is causation. David Hume is the West's great philosopher of causation, and Rosenberg argues that Humean causation can not be the whole story, and that we should think about causation a bit more. "Causation is a funny thing. We do not understand it." Rosenberg says that time and space are higher-level concepts than causation, and are derived from it. He quotes Brian Cantwell-Smith: "Distance is what there is no action at." And Rosenberg himself: "There is a causality condition on locality, not a locality condition on causality." He goes on to argue about the causal mesh, and the sorts of laws of physics which could be built out of different configurations of effective and receptive properties of objects, and what constitutes an object in the first place. Then he ties it all back to consciousness at the end.

If Rosenberg is right, he should get a Nobel prize. If he is wrong, his is still an Important Book, because it actually pounds a stake in the ground and lays out a theory, or at least a template of a future theory. No one else does this. Even in this fringey branch of philosophy, people are much too conservative, and Rosenberg has boldly gone where no one has gone before. But he has done so rigorously, level headedly, admitting where he is being speculative, but arguing why the circumstantial evidence supports his speculations.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Rosenberg, Consciousness & Causality, Dec 15 2004

By Stephen Esser "steve_esser" - Published on Amazon.com

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This review is from: A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World (Hardcover)

This book offers an ambitious new metaphysical proposal for understanding the natural world. It does this by exploring the deep connection between the philosophical problems of consciousness and causality, and then offering a thorough and detailed model for addressing both.

The outline of the book is as follows: first Rosenberg offers his take on the problem of consciousness in the context of contemporary philosophy of mind. Toward the end of this discussion he foreshadows how the issues which need to be addressed in this area connect to the challenges of understanding causality. He then shifts gears to critique past accounts of causality and present his own solution. Finally, he shows the connection between consciousness and causality and how to improve our understanding of both through a unified approach.

From the perspective of a general reader, I would say that the more background reading you've done on these topics, the better you will understand the book. Between my first and second reading I read other philosophy papers on causality and this helped. But at the same time, I think there are so many good ideas in the book that I would recommend it to anyone, even if you end up skimming some parts.

In recent reading I've done, it has been somewhat a revelation to realize the degree to which causality had still posed such a philosophical challenge. We are led to believe that the types of physical theories we have are also good objective causal explanations, but they are not. In showing how the challenges of understanding consciousness and causality are linked and making a proposal for a unified solution, Rosenberg's book should make it extremely difficult for the reader to consider either topic in isolation from the other going forward.

To conclude, I thought this was an excellent and thought-provoking book which really moves the discussion forward toward an improved metaphysics of the natural world. I hope the ideas in it gain circulation.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Physicalism Stripped Naked, Reductionism's Reductio, April 23 2005

By S. R. Deiss "bs-me-not" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World (Hardcover)

I highly recommend this book to anyone with the patience for following mind bending philosophical argument and with a sense of wonder about what the lowest "level" is where consciousness-like stuff shows up in the world we live in. For readers who do not have those two traits, my condolences. Maybe in your next incarnation....

The author has set the stage for a new debate and new approaches to unraveling the mind-body problem. His criticisms of physicalism, substance dualism, and a host of other prevalent approaches is spot on. The fine distinctions between this Liberal Naturalism he proposes and its philosophical antecedents is carefully developed. The Theory of Causal Significance underlying this approach is worthy of consideration.

In spite of a relevant background, I found the book a difficult read. I may get it all straight after a 3rd reading. Yet it is worth the effort. I am not sure whether I will end up in agreement with the author's main views or not. But I am sure that I will be struggling with the issues he raises for some time to come.

For making us think harder and for sending tremors through prevalent dogma, we should thank Rosenberg for pointing us to a family of promising alternate paths to understanding. However this turns out, science will be the wiser.

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